Blackguards: Dark RPG Fantasy, 1 Turn at a Time

Tactical dark fantasy with a few bright ideas.

By Leif Johnson

Why is it so hard to make a truly dark fantasy RPG? Blackguards claims it wants to lead us down gloomy paths shunned by traditional fantasy, but barely an hour goes by before it starts slipping into conventions as comfortably as sword into sheaths. Good thing for developer Daedalic, then, that its tactical combat usually manages to surmount such disappointments. It starts out slow, but it soon establishes itself as one of the more enjoyable tactical RPGs this side of Final Fantasy Tactics and The Banner Saga.

About that story: It certainly starts out right for the intended dark tone, down to the opening shot of a wolf looming over the bloodied corpse of a once lovely princess. Naturally, the wolf gets away. And just to top off this terrible, no good, very bad day, guards come trotting along insisting that you're responsible for the foul deeds afoot. Escape from prison follows soon after—hello, Baldur's Gate II, Oblivion, and countless others—and all you have at your side are the libidinous mage and gruff dwarf who were locked up with you.

And that's where Blackguards starts losing its way. Naurim the dwarf and Zurbaran seem like they'd make great drinking buddies, and in some ways that's their problem. Rather than acting like crooks who'll turn on you at the flip of a sovereign, both settle into this whole questing business more agreeably than Varric did in Dragon Age II. Before long, yes, they're off to looting tombs and battling trolls. They chitchat with townsfolk they encounter on the surrounding map with only cursory nods to that whole fugitive thing, and even the male voice lead sounds more like a dignified Cyril Figgis from Archer than a potential murderer. It's enjoyable enough, but by and large this is darkness with the nightlight on. When the concept succeeds, it's in the way the dialogue options allow you to respond as one of your companions, which could either score assistance or dump you into the turn-based battles.

By and large this is darkness with the nightlight on.

Most of the time that's a good thing. Blackguards draws its combat rules from The Dark Eye, a pen-and-paper RPG more familiar to folks in Daedalic's native Germany than to us weaned on Dungeons and Dragons. Pitting the main character in the fairly open-ended roles of a hunter, mage, or warrior (although with a limited character creator that'll allegedly grow have more options come launch), Blackguards delivers its battles on a hex grid format that better resembles tabletop gaming than, say, Heroes of Might and Magic. Indeed, in its best moments, it bears superficial comparisons to XCOM. You see this tendency most clearly in its allowing of running up extra squares at the expense of losing an action that turn, and through extensive interaction with the surrounding environments.

Therein lies the appeal of Blackguards' battles. There are no random maps here as in XCOM; rather, every battlefield serves as a setpiece that encourages extensive environmental interaction. It's here where Blackguards delivers its greatest advantage over the similar Banner Saga, which I loved. Not only does such an approach stave off the tedium that creeps into games more reliant on randomness, but it also gives meaning to the narrative and occasionally prompts the need for smart choices. A couple of hours in, I found myself already intrigued by the act of freeing prisoners from their cells or sliding rocks over the lairs of cave lice, and later Blackguards had me attempting to lure massive gorillas into cages and defending elves suffering from withdrawal. In many battles, toying with the environment leads to success, as does meaning harsh time limits or struggling against overwhelming odds. At this point in its development, Blackguards' greatest strength is that no two battles feel alike.

It doesn't reach this point easily. Blackguards' first few fights threaten to slip into drudgery in the absence of readily available gear and abilities, and it doesn't help that key concepts such as how to use the ability wheel are only cursorily explained. Until I found a belt with actual slots in it, I was briefly convinced that my inability to use potions in combat was a bug. (It wasn't.) In its favor, Blackguards boasts a fairly open leveling system that largely lets you level characters as you please regardless of class (although only mages can use magic), and I found it particularly useful for decking out Zurbaran with a sweet crossbow to make up for his rapidly draining mana. Yet it's also unforgiving. Make a hunter who uses a bow no better than an amateur, and you'll never be able to refund those points down the line if you so wish.

Remarkably, Daedalic manages to stuff exploration into all this. It's a bit limited on account of the setpiece design of its battlefields, unfortunately, but dungeons usually contain multiple rooms to investigate and side quests in the cities where you rest and stock up point you in the direction of the trolls and such mentioned above. If Daedalic manages to tighten up some of the features some release, it'll be interesting to see how well it holds up against The Banner Saga. While nowhere near as visually striking as Stoic's RPG, Blackguards does exude a visual flair of its own, and players seeking out more exploratory and interactive elements may find it the richer of the two experiences. Were Blackguards' story better, I'd wager that Stoic has reason to worry.